Ten-Minute Blog Break - 1st April

It's April the First, and I was tempted to write an entire Blog Break full of spoof posts this week. However, as there was no round-up last week that seemed a bit unfair. Plus, I'm not sure my brain's working well enough to do something like that!

One of the joys of being part of a community of writers is that moment of relief, when you discover that someone else is having the same problem as you. Michelle Newell's post about allowing yourself guilt-free time not to write is a must-read.

Cloud Riders author Nick Cook is chatting to Danl Tetley this week, talking about following his dreams (all the way to the bookshelf). In a lengthy interview, Nick discusses his influences, his passions and the perils of writing for editors when you should be writing for yourself.

I've always been a sucker for interactive fiction, spending my teenage years immersed in Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. So I'm always interested to hear about new attempts to bring interactivity to children's stories, such as the company that Sally Poyton interviews at Space on the Bookshelf. Freed Fiction are a small startup with big ideas, whose first iBook is based on Jeff Norton's MetaWars series.

Sticking with new technologies, Helen Dineen is blogging at Picture Book Den with an informative look at the pros and cons of picture book apps. And while you're at The Den, check out Juliet Clare Bell's excellent post about creative non-fiction picture books, including the amazing Cadbury chocolate-fest that is her latest commission.

For a final slice of picture book goodness, check out Loretta Schauer's post at Little Big Tales, where she's talking about endpapers. These easily-ignored elements of a picture book can be both a design treat and a sneaky addition to the narrative.

Nick.

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Nick Cross is a children's writer, blogger and all-round techno-ninja. In 2010 he was a winner of Undiscovered Voices with his zombie comedy Back from the Dead.

This week, Nick is featured on the Stew Magazine blog, talking about the inspiration behind his latest short story The Door Keeper.

Slush Pile Challenge - April 2014

We are pleased to announce the April 2014 Slush Pile Challenge.


This time the challenge has been set by Penny Holroyde.

Penny Holroyde is a literary agent with the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency. 

She began her publishing career dealing in foreign rights for Walker Books and then relocated to the USA where she worked as Director of Rights and Licensing for Candlewick Press in Massachusetts. She represents authors and illustrators from the well-seasoned to the debut and is always looking to add talent to her list.

THE CHALLENGE: 

Can you write funny? I’d like to see the first chapter of a novel for any age group that really makes me LOL. No synopses are required for this challenge, the chapter needs to stand on its own two hilarious feet.

LOL - Laugh Out Loud

THE REWARD:

Penny Holroyde will pick a winner and arrange to have a meeting with the winner by phone or in person for 30 minutes.

Send in your entries by 4th May 2014

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

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Who is eligible?

You need to be a current SCBWI un-agented member, resident in the UK.

If you win a challenge, you will not be able to enter for any other Slush Pile challenges.

To join SCBWI and take advantage of the many opportunities to: raise your profile, market your work, meet fellow writers, artists, the gatekeepers to publication, while being supported in the development and pursuit of your craft, visit scbwi.org.


What do you need to do?

Send in your entry (as Word Document) to competitions@britishscbwi.org by 4th May 2014.


The word document should be only the first chapter as requested by Penny.
Do not include your name, address or email address in the word document.


In the email - please write your full name as it appears in SCBWI membership records and your email address. Also include the title of your work.

The Process

We will choose 15 entries randomly and send to the agent for review.

The agent will pick a winner and also tell us why.

The winner will be put in touch with the agent for the 30-minute meeting.

Good Luck Everyone!

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Chitra has published over 20 books in Singapore, UK, USA and India. She loves writing picture books, folktales and is also working on fiction for 7+ with a lead character brightly named Aurora. Chitra is a member of the Words & Pictures' editorial team, managing The Slush Pile Challenge.

A Brief Guide to Time Travel by Sam Hawksmoor

I’ve always loved Time Travel stories and movies such as Twelve Monkeys or the recent Looper. I love the paradox and all the complexities. The Butterfly Effect was a pretty good attempt at showing just how impossible it all can be to go back and ‘fix’ things, and more importantly they didn’t obsess about the machinery to do it. He just focussed his mind and suddenly was there. Quantum Leap and Time Tunnel (not to forget The Philadelphia Experiment) spent a great deal of time on the mechanics of getting there. As Bruce Willis as Old Joe says in Looper ‘I don't want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we're going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws’.

For every romantic Time Traveler’s Wife there’s a cynical Hot Tub Time Machine – equally valid, one definitely funnier than the other. We can blame H G Wells for starting this, and let’s face it who hasn’t wished they could go back and change one thing? The girl you never said hi to, or the boy you wished you never said yes to, or the fork in the path where you quickly realize that you chose the wrong one from which there is no return…

For every romantic Time Traveler’s Wife there’s a cynical Hot Tub Time Machine – equally valid, one definitely funnier than the other. 

Mark Twain was tempted down this road with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – a Yankee engineer accidentally appears in King Arthur’s time and pretends to be a magician to impress his way into the Court’s favours, predicting an eclipse to get out of being burned at the stake by Merlin. Being American stood for all that was modern in 1889 and of course he wanted to bring improvements to 6th Century England – which naturally means guns. It’s a satire but told with affection.

Alison Uttley in 1939 used the real 16th Century Babington Plot to free Mary Queen of Scots in A Traveller in Time. A 20th Century girl is transported back to meet the conspirators. (I grew up on her Little Grey Rabbit books I seem to recall.) In 1958 Philippa Pearce wrote Tom’s Midnight Garden – a time-slip story taking her protagonist back to a time and place she has special affection for and a secret garden that only appears at night. Jack Finney’s Time and Again, where a man dreams his way back to New York, 1882 uses real tintypes to bring Manhattan vividly back to life. Also using found images to create a much creepier effect is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. Talking of misery. I almost forgot Stig of the Dump by Clive King (1962) - where an eight year old’s best friend is from the Stone Age. It’s sort of time travel, but a classic. As is A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively in 1976 that reads like a haunting, but is in fact gentle time travel - and if you like fossils this is for you.

The Terminator is time travel of course and it takes a contortionist to work out the plot as bad robot becomes good robot and meanwhile the fate of humankind is in the balance against the machines and AI. Most travel to the future is pretty bleak. Burned out worlds, over population, climate change, zombies. It’s no wonder we prefer to go ‘Back to the Future’… It offers a chance to put things right or show how different (and primitive) earlier times or situations were. But even It’s A Wonderful Life reveals how fragile we all are. Rebecca Stead wrote When You Reach Me about sixth grade kid, Miranda, in New York who gets a message from the future that says ‘I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own. I must ask two favours. First, you must write me a letter…’ More notes keep coming and Miranda knows something really bad is going to happen.

Alex Scarrow writes Time Riders using kids who should have died in the past (on the Titanic etc.) and are perhaps, cynically, expendable. They are meant to stop a maniac with a time machine who has joined forces with Hitler, who then conquers America. Like many time travel stories, it throws up more questions than are answered I think, but hey, kids like it.

What is important to realise is that time travel and history work best if kids are actually taught history in school. They risk not being able to get the point if they don’t know why something is important.

And then there’s Steampunk, which really relies on history, but not as you know it. An example is the grim but fantastic The Dead Gentlemen by Mathew Cody, about an evil villain in 1901 who hates living creatures and a boy who steals a mechanical bird but then is trapped for a hundred years in the basement until a girl called Jezebel frees him. Time travel, monsters, the undead, what’s not to like?

I started writing this on Groundhog Day. The idea of a man stuck on one day and having to stay there until he finally learns the one important thing is a great one. Bill Murray’s finest hour and a half probably. Kids still love Time Bandits. And who wouldn’t like little people, worm holes in a Time Map, Satan, God? Throw in some classic heroes such as Robin Hood and a small boy called Kevi… brilliant. Then there’s ‘Where were you Robert?’ by Hans Magnus Enzensberger about a boy who just looks at a painting and suddenly he’s there in whatever era, facing all kinds of dangers (and no one seems to miss him). There are hundreds of time travel stories out there – which shows that writers love to think about the past and, of course the future. The past we can change, the future is still up for grabs.

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Sam Hawksmoor started writing after careers that involved travel, photography and teaching (running the Masters Programme in Creative Writing at Portsmouth University and Falmouth before that).
He is the joint editor of Hackwriters.com - the writers website now in its 15 year.

Sam is the author of four YA novels. The Repossession, The Hunting & The Repercussions of Tomas D and soon 'The Heaviness' - the final thrilling volume in the Genie Magee trilogy - due May 2014

The Repossession was Winner of The Wirral 'Paperback of the Year' + finalist for the Leeds Books Awards & Bronze Winner of The Amazing Book Awards 2013

Mother's Day Angst

It's Mothering Sunday in the UK, today - who are your favourite fictional mums? Some of mine are the wonderfully fickle and cringefully embarrassing Mrs Bennet obviously, the kind heroic story-writing Mrs Waterbury of The Railway Children and the extremely capable 'Mum' from The Oxford Reading Tree's early reader Mum to the Rescue.

If you were choosing a fictional mum who would she or, let's not be rigid about this, they or even he be? 

Choosing is hard and here is my last choice of top birthday picks from our first year. As I type, I don't know which it's going to be so while I think let me thank you for all your kind birthday wishes and draw your attention again to Nick's wonderful photo montage of contributors and all those generous people who've shared their good news with us over the last year - What a lot of good news! We couldn't make Words & Pictures happen without you all.  If you would like to join this lovely group of contributors have a look at our FAQs,  Features Guidelines and Monthly Themes for this coming year 2.

Story by Roderisck Hunt,
Pictures by Alex Brychta
©Oxford University Press

Actually, after some perusing of the backlist, I can't choose - it's like asking a mother to choose between her children - I honestly don't know how I've managed the angst so far. So on Mothers' Day and our last Birthday Month weekend  I shall say 'use the labels on the left and the archive list on the right to do a lucky dip!'

Last week was a wonderful week, along with all the lovely birthday wishes we had the chance to relive World Book Day with Sheila Averbuch, Pencaitland Primary and their whole school story. David gave us a flavour of the latest SCBWI London YA Masterclass with Judy Waite and Lorraine's report of the London Discover Story Centre's panel event gave us some great tips on How to Make Money from Writing and Illustrating for Children. On the subject of events isn't a Book L[a]unch a fabulous idea? Thank you Chitra for sharing.

Tatum Flynn gave us some compelling reasons to book for the SCBWI Writers' Retreat and we rejoiced with UV Honorary Mention George Kirk and latest Slush Pile Challenge winner! Finally we had a new featured illustrator - welcome Portia Rosenberg. Do have a good look at Portia's Gallery her scenes are atmospheric, her characters alive, and with a marvellous Moose, she has the creepiest wolf I ever saw.

Next week among the delights, we welcome back Sam Hawksmoor with a post about time travel in children's fiction. This is a great way to end our Birthday month - birthdays being all about the passing of time.  Nicky will be sharing some more marketing know-how to kick off Marketing Month and Nick will be back on blogs.  I am also very much looking forward to our  new contributor Chloe Yelland's post on the late nineteenth, early twentieth illustrator, Walter Crane.

If you're mothering or being mothered today, I hope it's fun. But for all us motherless children I especially hope Mrs Bennet 'in all her glory' will make you smile!

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is all over the place, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.

Book L(a)unch

What’s the difference between a Book Launch and a Book Lunch?

Once upon a time, in the year of 2013, I got an email from the warm and friendly Steve Bicknell of Maverick Books. His email said I was invited to a book lunch. Do I get to eat books for lunch, I wondered. I’m not that kind of monster. I do read books, I eat lunch and I could do both together. But eating books? That was a bit dry for even me, the vegetarian. Granted they were made of plant produce. But was the ink vegan? I digress.

You guessed correct! At a book lunch, you not only launch the books, you also get lunch. A great lunch – at the Palm Court Brasserie in Covent Garden. With champagne and dessert and fantastically literary company. Oh, I forgot to mention, you get a copy of the books. Now that’s what I call a book lunch.

I checked the email a few times – was it spam? Was I wrongly invited? Then another email popped into my inbox. From Julie Fulton who is part of my picture book critique group and said you will get an invite from Steve. Ah that explains it. And then another email from Alice Hemming. Another SCBWI member who I had met in a workshop.

On the 27th of September 2013, two British Isles SCBWI members were launching their books with Maverick Books. Right they are mavericks! Celebrating book launches with wonderful lunches and inviting a guest of honour like Julia Eccleshare and a nobody like me to sit next to each other. (Yes! My claim to fame – I sat next to Julia all through the lunch and heard her talk about books, reading, schools and more).

With blessings from Natascha Biebow, our wonderful RA, I accepted to represent SCBWI at the lunch. Someone had to. Wink, wink. 

What a way to send your book into the bookstores. With reviewers, TV producers and other book people like Viv Bird from BookTrust. What a way to say thank you to the people who put the books together – from editor Kim to everyone in the Maverick office. 

Speech! We asked Julie and she said

SCBWI had been an influence on her writing and getting published. Alice seconded that. And I was proud to be a SCBWI representative at that event. 

It wasn’t my book lunch! But I was proud to be there. That’s what SCBWI does to you. You’re part of a community of supporters. You are being supported. 

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Chitra has published over 20 books in Singapore, UK, USA and India. She loves writing picture books, folktales and is also working on fiction for 7+ with a lead character brightly named Aurora. Chitra is a member of the Words & Pictures' editorial team, managing The Slush Pile Challenge for writers.

Featured Illustrator: Portia Rosenberg

This month Featured Illustrator welcomes Portia Rosenberg to Words & Pictures. Through imaginative pencil drawings, Portia has developed an expressive narrative style reminiscent of classic illustrators. See more of Portia's art works in the Featured Illustrator Gallery.




I was born in North Manchester, in 1962, into a large Jewish community.  More specifically, into the dining room of the house where we lived until I was 11.

My interest in narrative drawing began with drawing faces.  That started when I was very little.  My family were at my wonderfully loving aunty's house, no doubt having just eaten her regular generous offering of 'it-makes-me-burst-with-pleasure-just-to-cook-it-for-you' egg and chips.  Someone - my Dad, I think - showed me how to draw a profile by writing the numbers 1 to 4, one below another.  The bottom of each touches the top of the next and the 3 is reversed.  I was a little bit wowed by how the linked numbers seemed to spell out reality: the 3, especially, said 'curved lips' just so satisfyingly that I think it looked like magic to me.

Recent personal work.  The exaggeration of the eyebrows 
and the tiny ears seemed to be just what I was aiming for.
I use this image for my business card.

Drawing in school followed on from there – trying to make marks add up to something real; mostly, as now, working from imagination or memory.  But I was only able to do tentative drawings of people, or just faces, and I had little or no ability to describe space or form.

I certainly feel as if my 'career path' has happened by accident, with generous dollops of doubt along the way. (Whereas now, I do aim to be more deliberate and think about effective strategies).


I first studied for a degree in English Literature, roughly a million years ago, at Anglia Ruskin University (then known as Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology). I had varied low-skilled jobs for many years, and then, when a friend encouraged me to take seriously how much I enjoyed life-drawing classes, I did an Art Foundation.

Cinderella sketch, drawn around 1995.
Showing the difficulty in relating figures to each other in the space, 
but also showing the kind of over-the-top caricature that I often like.

At the end of the Foundation year, most people were applying to do degrees – and interestingly, (or weirdly, depending on your perspective) I ended up doing the same, even though I already had one.  Even more interestingly or weirdly, I went back to ARU, as it was known to be good for drawing.  

The teaching there helped me to progress, particularly with that struggle to explain space and form, which meant that I could more confidently place figures in simple environments, around a table, maybe.  I do still find this a challenge.

Gradually, we were given more open projects, and illustrator friends helped me choose book illustration and Dickens as my text.  Some of us would go together for strikingly useful extra private tuition - a whole day-class of life drawing.  After our first class, I was really keyed up and stayed up late, drawing a scene from Oliver Twist. 
It was the first time that I had managed to put several people together in a space and yet had drawn them enthusiastically, with my own approach. 
It wasn't the best drawing but it was full of me.  It's interesting how that seems elusive to achieve.

Produced at college, around 1993.  
'Oliver Twist' sketch, by Charles Dickens.

I like noticing the extent of that progress, which took some years; to me, it demonstrates how skill is not inherent but is learnable, given the teaching, resource and encouragement.

 

Produced at college, around 1993.
'Mr Bumble', sketch from 'Oliver Twist', by Charles Dickens.

Shortly after the Illustration degree, in 1996, I exhibited artwork as part of Cambridge Open Studios and one of the visitors was Susanna Clarke.  It was not until some years later, that she asked me to do some speculative drawings to accompany her submission to publishers of the manuscript for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.  We weren't sure whether the publishers would agree to the book being illustrated, but, amazingly, this was my first commission. 

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, 
published by Bloomsbury in 2004.

Some years later, after one of many long periods doing other work, I was more able to decide to actively seek further commissions.  I found the Association of Illustrators events to be helpful – particularly one where we got to show work in small groups, to people from different areas of the industry - which is how I was commissioned to illustrate The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas, for the Folio Society.
 

The Black Tulip, by Alexandre Dumas, 
published by the Folio Society in 2011.

Immediately after completing that commission, I began a job at Addenbrookes Hospital, where I worked for a few years.  I certainly have struggles with working alone, and effectively, whereas, at the hospital, I loved being part of such a teeming place of work with such a clearly essential purpose.  These are definitely the kind of issues I still think about.

I couldn't have predicted that showing drawings for Open Studios would lead to work, years later.  I see now what an important strategy it is for our artwork to be visible in as many ways as we can figure out. However, the current reality is one of a harsh economic climate which offers vastly reduced work opportunities and so maybe it would be naive to think that all it takes to get work is determined self-promotion.
 

Recent personal work.  
Moose character for my story-poem, clearly not too 
concerned about the current harsh economic climate.

If I can manage to dig into myself for the drive necessary for a drawing to be 'full of me' – which in itself requires some level of determination – then that drive is for exaggerated character, drama, light and atmosphere.  

In the last year, I started Improvisation classes as I adore that kind of comedy – and it seems like a 3-D medium for the same drive, using my own body and facial expression.
I am inspired especially by Honore Daumier, Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

Recent personal work.  'I'm sorry Sir, we're fully booked'.

I love the physical process of drawing - the sensitivity of soft pencil as it melts onto the page, making marks which seem to communicate more than a literal depiction.  I'm a sucker for a specific feel of pencil and paper – the smoothest surface, and a 5b Faber-Castell pencil, to be precise – and use erasers a lot – spending quite a while changing things till I get closer to the pose or character that I want.  I also love the lushness of oil painting and would love to get comfortable with using it.

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Check Portia's page in the Featured Illustrator Gallery to see more of her illustration work. Her personal website is here
email: portia@portiarosenberg.com

How to Make Money from Writing and Illustrating for Children

Discover Story Centre Stratford London

On Thursday 13th March I went to a Masterclass in "How to make money from writing and illustrating for children" at the Discover Story Centre in Stratford, London.

The Masterclasses are run every year as part of their Big Write event and can be a really useful way to learn about publishing. I joined a room full of hopeful writers and illustrators downstairs for this final masterclass of the year.

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There was a tremendous panel in place including SCBWI's very own Bridget Strevens Marzo, lovely agent Penny Holroyde from the Caroline Sheldon Agency and publishing powerhouse Kate Wilson from Nosy Crow. The panel was  chaired by Guardian Children's Book critic Julia Eccleshare.


The evening began with Bridget talking us through her own long and varied career as a writer and illustrator of children's books. She told us how important it was to be open to all opportunities from picture books to novelty/board books, concept books, covers, magazines, apps, ebooks and games. Being precious about what you will do will not aid you if you want a long career. When things were tough she taught workshops and went on school visits and still struggled at times to earn a living. I'm pleased to say that Bridget has a new book coming out in 2015 called Tiz and Otts Big Draw.

Being open to all opportunities is very important if you want a long career.

Next to talk was Penny Holroyde who's been in publishing for 19 years starting in foreign rights at Walker Books before moving to US publishers Candlewick. As an agent she now receives thirty to fifty submissions a day and spends most of her time managing clients which includes; looking at how to get the best financial deal for their authors, helping to shape ideas, discussing career development and on occasion a little bit of agony aunt advice!

Bridget Strevens Marzo, Penny Holroyde and Kate Wilson

In submissions for picture books Penny likes to see a minimum of three texts and suggests that  illustrators make sure they have pictures of children in their portfolios. She also said that she's generally looking for some sort of qualification for illustrators.
For children's book submissions Penny wants to know who the book will appeal to along with a short blurb and plot summary that gives us an idea of the world and the characters and what triggers the action.

Make sure you know who your book will appeal to.

Kate was up next and she runs Independent Publisher Nosy Crow which publishes books for children up to 14 years old (or 12 for boys). They began in 2011 and have a staff of around 15. In comparison newly merged Penguin Random House has 1500 employees! She presented a wonderful powerpoint presentation of exactly what a publisher does and why you might want one.

•  Money - they pay this to authors as an advance

•  Printing
•  Distribution
•  Storage

•  Access - to consumers, especially the large corporations like supermarkets and Amazon. Nosy Crow only take on books with world rights 

• Credibility

•  Expertise - from creative inspiration to shaping and packaging the book so it fulfils it's true potential.

•  Support

• Trust - without this on both sides the partnership won't work.

 Finishing off the evening was Julia Eccleshare who as a critic for the Guardian gets sent 8 to 10 000 books each year. She is looking for a story that is told differently, has a fresh voice and great characters. She reiterated how important it is to grab readers early on if you want them to keep reading and reminded us all that publishing is full of luck.




Bridget Marzo, Penny Holroyde, Kate Wilson, Julia Eccleshare


This was a very interesting event and all the speakers were helpful in giving us a picture of what life is like for writers and illustrators and how difficult it can be for everyone involved to make money! The tone was definitely hopeful and encouraging however as long as we keep in mind the hard work needed, the importance of flexibility and that ever elusive luck plays a part in everything.

Thanks to everyone involved, including the Discover Centre for hosting the event. It's a wonderful place to stimulate children's imagination. Do pop along with your little ones for their Secret Agent event if you get the chance!

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Lorraine Gregory has been writing fantasy adventure books aimed at middle-grade boys for the last three years. She's been a chef and a restaurant manager and now works from home as an Antenatal Teacher. She belongs to the Words & Pictures Team and helps Tania to bring joy to our Saturday Celebrations' posts

Judy Waite's London Masterclass - Growing Pains: Writing for Young Adults

©John Shelley

What lengths are you prepared to go to in order to tap into your teenage protagonist’s mind and find their voice? Would you:-

• Run away up to London dressed as a teenage boy?
• Audition for a part in a boy band?
• Get locked up in a police cell?

All of these have been tried and tested by award-winning author Judy Waite!

With a confession like that, her SCBWI London Masterclass: ‘Growing Pains: Writing for Young Adults.’ promised to be an interesting and entertaining ride.

And that’s exactly how it turned out.

She took us through a series of fun and thought-provoking exercises in a bid to master the dark art of creating a credible and compelling teenage voice.

An interesting and entertaining ride!

Connecting With Your Own Inner Teenager

Working in small groups, we were set the task of remembering what it was like to be a teenager in ‘our day’. For some of us that meant beaming back to the late seventies/early eighties when Punk Rock and fears of being nuked by the Russians ruled. For others it was more about friends, boys and getting hold of alcohol.

But there was a strong consensus that it had also been about isolation and not fitting in. Or, as one member of the group reflected, is it that writers are just a pathologically insecure bunch?

What Matters to Teenagers Now?

Next, we considered today. Are there things that matter more to teenagers now than when we were growing up? No surprises for guessing that social media in all its many guises topped the list. Then followed material goods, self-image and employment.

...is it that writers are just a pathologically insecure bunch?

In essence though, we concluded that the young adults of today are not so hugely different in their passions and fears, hopes and dreams. The trick, as Judy pointed out, is to get into their heads and understand how they live their lives.

Reinvent Yourself

To try and help with this, Judy encouraged us to reinvent ourselves as teenagers today. So we wrote a couple of paragraphs to bring ourselves bang up to date. This proved a challenge. And some of us weren’t quite sure how to transform ourselves into a new, updated version.

Perhaps we're too much like Peter Pan, never wanting to be teenagers in the first place!

Getting All Cut Up

This exercise is based on a tried and tested approach to writing adopted by the likes of William Burroughs and David Bowie. Judy got us experimenting with a new and creative way into the teenage mind.

Perhaps we're too much like Peter Pan

We picked a selection of short phrases and sentences drawn from Facebook messages posted by real-life teenagers and from published teenage novels – including Judy’s own favourite, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – and used them to conjure up a teenage voice and a setting.

We had a little help from a special extra – a bit of meditative candle contemplation.

The results of this time spent ‘in the zone’ and focussing on our character’s needs and wants, proved both powerful and compelling and gave many of us the ingredients for a new and exciting teenage voice to go away and explore.

And we hadn’t even had to get locked up to do it! (By the way, Judy was quick to confess that the audition and the time spent in jail had been with the collusion of the organisations concerned – phew, that’s a relief!)

Thanks again Judy for a stimulating, creative and fun session – and to Wendy Allen for the pictures.

There are still a few places left on the next Masterclass: Fantasy Writing for Young Readers lead by Robert Paul Weston – Saturday 17 May 2014. For bookings and more information visit https://britishisles.scbwi.org/events/author-masterclass-fantasy-writing-for-young-readers-with-robert-paul-weston/ or email masterclasses@britishscbwi.org

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Alison Smith works as a freelance PR and communications professional for part of her week.

For the rest of it she is to be found clamped to her computer – when she’s not busy pursuing the usual writerly diversions of blog-reading, net-surfing and gazing out of the window – wrestling with her middle grade historical novel set in early Jacobean London..

World Book Day becomes 'I Wrote A Book Day' in Pencaitland

Sheila Averbuch

What happens when you throw a writer with no classroom experience into the odyssey of writing a "whole-school story" with 36 primary school children?

For us it was Hazel and the Pirate Family, a story devised and illustrated collaboratively by all nine classes of our local primary school. 

Something interesting happened to me for World Book Day, which I would like to rename "I wrote a book day," if nobody minds. I have two children in our local Pencaitland Primary School, a small village school based in East Lothian, near Edinburgh. Pencaitland parents get very involved in Book Week, and this year Principal Teacher Emma Kerr suggested that one parent might be a roving writer, developing a "whole school story" which would involve students from every class.

"I really wanted to have the whole school working collaboratively," Emma explained to me later. "I thought it would be a nice link between all of the kids and the school." The school had had experience of collectively writing a poem together before, she said, but nothing like this. The learning outcomes Emma was hoping for included audience awareness, trying to ensure that the Primary 7s, for example, didn't write something "too high-falutin' that the smaller ones couldn't follow on with."

I was already down as one of the volunteers, and when Emma asked, I agreed to become that roving writer. I'm as-yet unpublished and unagented, and have no previous classroom experience, so I threw myself on the collective mercy of fellow SCBWI numbers, seeking tips on how to handle this project. They provided targeted and brilliant last-minute advice, which meant I went in to the school on World Book Day armed with the following strategy:

Break the process down, and allow each section of students to focus on one aspect of the story

This was the magic key to success, and thank you so much to Bryony Pearce and the others who recommended this approach.

On arrival I was told I'd be given 36 children (4 students from a total of 9 classes), from morning nursery through to Primary 7, including one composite class P1-P2. I spent about 5 hours in total with the kids.

How we wrote a whole-school story in Pencaitland

Here's how the day went:

9:30am: I started by asking my Primary 7's what makes a good story: they said things like, "cliffhanger chapter endings" and "great descriptions," but I tried to focus them on something that ties all of that together: character. 

Using a character questionnaire from Christina Banach, provided at one of our SCBWI Southeast Scotland teach-ins, the kids created the main character, Hazel. From her favourite pastime (watching Pirate Family TV show…similar to Modern Family in real life) to the sad loss of her father, Hazel was a substantial character in just 20 minutes. It was a bit like an improv in drama: I told them the only rule is that they had to accept what the other person had just said and build on it, rather than rejecting.

9:50am: The next group (Primary 5) focused on the baddie: the most helpful key question from Christina's questionnaire was, "What one thing in his past still affects him?" The Primary 5's piped up with a beautifully tragic childhood that powered our baddie through the rest of the narrative.

10 am – 11:30am: The following three classes were all tiny, so we focused on the scenery, exploring the sights and sounds of the setting: the pirate ship, the weather, the smells of the food they'd eat, scary things at the beach. (My favourite bit? The tiny nursery girl describing how it feels to hold seaweed in your hand. "It feels bobbly," she said. Another nursery student gave us the name of Hazel's teddy bear).

11:30am: By now we knew it was a story about an eight-year-old girl who gets herself onto a pirate ship, but the Primary 4's worked out the overall storyline. This was a key session that focussed on how the baddie would try to ruin Hazel's adventure…there was much talk about villains from movies and books! They, as with all the day's earlier classes, drew pictures that I was able to show to the next class. This was brilliant for giving the little ones a concrete idea of Hazel and the pirate ship.

11:45: Primary 1. Back to the tiny ones: again we focused on sights and sounds, plus a lot of detail about exactly what would be in Hazel's bedroom, where our story opens.

Noon: Primary 6 told me exactly what would be in Chapter 1: opening scene, how Hazel gets onto the pirate ship and why she wants to go there. They gave all the detail of how Hazel hastily packs her backpack and sneaks out her bedroom window. One student had the fab idea that Hazel is so obsessed with the Pirate Family TV show, she keeps her sweets in a pirate's treasure box (pictured top). To this point, I'd taken notes by hand, but now I opened my laptop and began typing like a demon.

Lunch: illuminating lunchtime in the cafeteria, where I learned an awful lot about the rules of the school! It was a salutary reminder that primary school is very rule-guided … something which influenced how I wrote the main character later on.

1:20 – 1:40pm: Primary 3 helped me write Chapter 2: the first important obstacle for our heroine. They described what happened when she got onto the pirate ship and her first encounter with the baddie. (They gave wonderful detail of how the baddie smelled when Hazel had to squeeze past him in the dark belly of the ship: "like rotten eggs and drying paint.")

1:40pm – 2:20pm: Luckily my last two groups were the same eight students I'd begun the day with. They were fascinated at how the story had developed and were able to think through the story's exciting climax, smooth out the whole story and give me the resolution, where Hazel and the baddie reconcile.

2:30 pm: Back to the Deputy Head's office for a cup of tea and a general collapse.

Back to my desk that night – my husband made supper – and a really rather extreme 7-hour writing marathon. I tried to incorporate bits and pieces from every child's ideas, mindful of my role as the writer who had to quilt the scraps into a narrative with some kind of pattern and logic.

The result was a 6000-word novella based on the characters, storyline and setting the 36 children had devised. It's just a rough, but with the help of my writing buddy Louise Kelly who gave it a fast sanity check, I had a reasonable Chapter 1 to read at that Friday's assembly. (I was extra-eager for Chapter 1 to be not-awful, as we're hosting a SCBWI Keith Gray workshop in Edinburgh at the end of March on Strong Beginnings! 

At assembly I asked the 36 children to stand up and look around at each other: "These are your fellow story makers!" I told them, and we applauded them all before I read aloud the first chapter.

Did the kids enjoy developing the whole-school story?

Yes! Children love stories! And they were crazy-excited that they had made this story. Interestingly, when I read out Chapter 1 to the assembly, I realised I was reading more to the peanut gallery of parents gathered around the edge. I really needed to bring my attention back to the children themselves sitting on the floor! When I did, I almost did a double-take at the rapt attention on their faces: it was thrilling to witness.

Thinking back, I'm delighted that every group was so engaged in the story-making process, even the groups where the kids weren't known to be huge fans of reading and writing. I now have a manuscript where I can underline elements that came from every child in every class, from the bobbly seaweed to key lines of dialogue.

What's next?

I was keen for the kids to understand that one doesn't just write a manuscript and then publish it: ideally you would leave it in a drawer for a month, revise it, get rid of the half of it that doesn't tell your story and focus on making the other half really shine.

So I was delighted that Deputy Head Lindsey Barley contacted the Scottish Book Trust, who has put the school in touch with an editor from one of the big publishers in Edinburgh as a next step. That editor will come in and talk to the students about how the process would work in the publishing world, explaining how one works on a manuscript with an editor in advance of publication. There'll be another session between myself and the students, and a more polished version of the story will be finished in time for the school fair in May, where parents will be able to buy a copy in printed form or in Kindle version.

Would I do this again? Absolutely. Could I have done it without the help of SCBWI members? Not in a million years. Special thanks to Bryony Pearce, Christina Banach, Louise Kelly, Jane Benson McLoughlin, Celia Bingham, Elizabeth Wein, Miriam Craig and Yona.

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Sheila Averbuch blogs at www.spacekidsbooks.com and is co-coordinator with Louise Kelly of the Southeast Scotland network of SCBWI British Isles.

Happy Birthday Words & Pictures!

Click through for the big version!

Words & Pictures is one whole year old today, and to celebrate, Nick has taken a break from his usual duties to create this amazing montage of everyone who has contributed to the site so far.

Thank you Nick!

And here is a special mention for those people we couldn't squeeze into the montage but have been generous enough to share their good news with us in our Saturday Celebrations: 

Abbie Todd

Alice Hemmings
Andy Shepherd

Anne Marie Conway
Book Bound Retreat

Carmel Waldron 

Catherine Cooper

Clare Furniss
Christina Banach
Helen Dineen

Jackie Buckle

Jackie Marchant

Jo Franklin
Kate Scott

Lara Williamson

Lydia Syson

Marie-Claire Imam-Gutierrez

Mark Jones
Marnie Riches

Martin Stewart
Maxine Lee

Mo O 'Hara

Nick Cook

Paula Rawsthorne
Paula Harrison

Ruth Eastham

Ruth Fitzgerald

Sam Hepburn

Steve Hartley

Teri Terry

Veronica Cosantelli 

An enormous THANK YOU to everyone - we couldn't have got here without you.

Here's to year two!

Results - Slush Pile Challenge January 2014

This challenge was set by Clare Whitston of OUP.

The winner of this challenge is George Kirk for her character portrayal of Manfred Cat. 

THE CHALLENGE was…

A character portrayal for a 7-9 series fiction. In 2 pages, entrants were requested to portray the lead characters, the worlds in which the character lived in and the minor characters.

We sent 15 anonymous, randomly chosen entries to Clare Whitston at Oxford University Press. We asked Clare to tell us why she chose George's character Manfred Cat as the winning entry.

The team very much enjoyed reading the entries for the Slushpile Challenge. I was really pleased with the standard of entries and there were about 5 which I could have quite happily declared the winner. 

It was actually really hard to pick just one in the end, but after some deliberation we decided that Manfred Cat was our favourite – a story about a fat, lazy, ginger cat – he’s a witches' cat who can’t stand witches! 

We thought it was fun and had plenty of scope for development both in terms of the world and across a series. 

I especially liked the idea of Manfred hanging out with his friends, Goren the Toad and Arthur the Raven and would love to see the author develop these friendships further.

Our head of design, Molly Dallas, has kindly agreed to attend our brainstorming session.

George Kirk will be meeting the entire fiction team at OUP and the head of design Molly Dallas too during her visit. George has promised to report back to us on how much her trip was useful in developing her own series.

Purrrrfect!

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Chitra has published over 20 books in Singapore, UK, USA and India. She loves writing picture books, folktales and is also working on fiction for 7+ with a lead character brightly named Aurora. Chitra is a member of the Words & Pictures' editorial team, managing The Slush Pile Challenge for writers.